My Wicked Wicked Ways: Poems by Sandra Cisneros

My Wicked Wicked Ways: Poems Reviews

• 
  David Sumner

  This is the book and the poet responsible for me becoming totally hooked on poetry. I think it had a lot to do with the familiarity of the subject of the poems, growing up in working class Latino neighborhoods, the culture and just surviving the ever present cruelty of childhood.
  
  Beautiful free verse that stimulates every sense. Even now as I write this I can smell the fresh tortillas, hear the music and the shrieks of the kids as they kick a ball up and down the street. I wish I was out there with them right now.
• 
  Ken

  This book is wicked old (as they say in these parts), coming out in 1987. Still, curiosity got the best of me. After teaching her collection of vignettes, The House on Mango Street, over and over and did I say over(?) again, I wondered what Cisneros's poetry would look like.
  
  Esperanza, the autobiographical protagonist in Mango, after all, speaks more than once of her poetry. And many vignettes in that book are sheer poetry themselves. Rich in poetic devices.
  
  I was a bit disappointed, then, to see that I preferred Cisneros's vignettes to her poetry. At least this collection gets stronger as it goes. Still, overall, a letdown.
  
  Here's an example of a poem that wasn't so peachy keen:
  
  
  Peaches---Six in a Tin Bowl, Sarajevo
  
  If peaches had arms
  surely they would hold one another
  in their peach sleep.
  
  And if peaches had feet
  it is sure they wold nudge one another
  with their soft peachy feet.
  
  And if peaches could
  they would sleep
  with their dimpled head
  on the other's
  each to each.
  
  Like you and me.
  
  And sleep and sleep.
  
  
  I dunno. We poets read published work like this and say to ourselves, "Really?" Then we think, "If I sent that in, it'd be rejected sixty-six ways to Sunday. A cruel editor might even comment, 'This is the pits.'"
  
  But, yea. There were better poems, too. And I still hold Sandra Cisneros in high regard. Just more for Mangoes than peaches.
• 
  Megan O'Hara

  Sandra absolutely fucks, thank you Sasha for letting me borrow for literal years!
• 
  Lucy

  Beautiful Man--France
  I saw a beautiful man today
  at the café.
  Very beautiful.
  But I can't see
  without my glasses.
  
  So I ask the woman next to me.
  Yup, she says, he's beautiful.
  But I don't believe her
  and go to see for myself.
  
  She's right.
  He is.
  
  Do you speak English?
  I say to the beautiful man.
  A little, the beautiful man says to me.
  You are beautiful, I say.
  No two ways about it.
  He says beautifully, Merci.
• 
  Malcolm

  I did not plan to read this book.
  
  Recently, I moved to a new town, and our local library is beautiful—castle-like—but small. Browsing the stacks for unexpected gems, I came across the poetry section, which took up no more than a single rectangle on one shelf. It featured mostly older poets like T. S. Eliot who aren’t high on my list of read-soon collections. The spine of My Wicked Wicked Ways caught my eye, and I realized it was by the same author as The House on Mango Street, which I read a few years ago and adored for its poetic vignette structure. Still, I had enough to read at the time (don’t we always?), so I put the book back.
  
  But every time I returned to the library, it felt like Sandra Cisneros was watching me, until finally I caved and tucked the book under my arm.
  
  The introductory poem is worth ten stars alone. I must’ve read it three or four times because it just sparks off the page with voice and feeling:
  
  

  
  My first felony—I took up with poetry.
  For this penalty, the rice burned.
  Mother warned I’d never wife.
  
  Wife? A woman like me.
  whose choice was rolling pin or factory.
  An absurd vice, this wicked wanton
  writer’s life.
  

  
  
  The collection is divided into four sections: her younger years, her adolescence, her travels, and her lovers (at least, these seem to be the themes to me). Some poems are nostalgic snapshots, like “Good Hotdogs,” which simply describes her eating hotdogs with a friend—a moment in time captured on the page. There’s also the literal snapshot in the title poem “My Wicked Wicked Ways,” where she portrays her parents’ relationship through the description of a photograph and says her father looks like the actor Errol Flynn. When I was Googling this collection, I saw that Errol Flynn’s autobiography shares the same title (I admittedly don’t know much about the Golden Age of Hollywood).
  
  There’s a shade of melancholy in some of these poems about her early life, including the first selection, “Velorio,” which translates to “Wake.” It wasn’t until my second read of the poem that I understood the unsettling juxtaposition of the children laughing and playing during an infant’s wake: “That baby in a box like a valentine.” That’s just one example of Cisneros’s brilliance when it comes to creating mood in her poems with a single line.
  
  The latter half of the collection is what turned my review into five stars, especially when Cisneros writes of the men she’s loved and hated (some in equal measure). One of Cisneros’s strengths lies in her similes, which are so strikingly true without relying on cliché, such as “The brain clicks like a gun” and “When you tug me beside you / I dissolve like a ribbon of snow.”
  
  There’s even a cheeky ode to her lover’s magnificent bum (eloquently entitled “Ass”) that had me busting out laughing because it was so unexpected. Poetry can be Serious with a capital “S” at the times, so I love it when poets joke around.
  
  I can’t help but think that these love and breakup poems are what most Instagram poets aspire to create. The language here is accessible yet voice-driven, with precise images. Through nuance rather than tropes, Cisneros shares all the intricacies of love, affection, obsession, jealousy, bitterness, snobbery, and self-loathing. Just take this stanza:
  
  

  
  Maybe in this season, drunk
  And sentimental, I’m willing to admit
  a part of me, crazed and kamikaze,
  ripe for anarchy, loves still.
  

  
  
  The final poem in the collection is in Spanish, but alas, the lessons from my college years have long faded. Of this language choice, Cisneros has said, “When I tried to translate it into English, it sounded wrong to me and I had to leave it in Spanish.”
  
  It’s almost impossible to choose a favorite poem, but I was drawn to “December 24th, Paris—Notre-Dame,” which ends with this beautiful sentiment:
  
  

  
  I go out into the street once more.
  The wrists so full of living.
  The heart begging once again.
  

  
  
  My Wicked Wicked Ways feels like a glimpse into another time and another life, which is exactly where I want poetry to take me.
  
• 
  Joshua

  This collection was incredible. I try to read a few books of poetry a year, and while there have been many that I've enjoyed, by the end of this book I was reminded of my love of poetry, and in a burst I read the last 50 pages devouring every line.
  
  Sandra Cisneros is a writer who understands that poetry is as much what is said as is what isn't said. Each word in these poems is carefully selected so that one gets a feeling. And that feeling lingers in the reader long after they have finished the collection. Words as simple as "tomato," "green green suit," "hotdogs," and "Pearls" leave the reader with a feeling of the space and place that these material objects occupy. And as they reflect on those words, as they feel those words in their mind, the words and images become meaning unto themselves. And damn it that's what poetry is supposed to do.
  
  Rather than simply try to philosophize with pretty words, these poems are a real attempt to communicate the soul and spirit honestly and completely. Cisneros is able to speak the language of her heart and experience in this collection, and by the end I didn't want to put the book down. Reading My Wicked Wicked Ways is like entering into another space that permeates the body, mind, and spirit. This collection is like looking through another's person's soul and finding there world as something else. Something beautiful. And of course, because it's poetry, this experience is terribly fleeting, but all the more beautiful because of it's ephemeral quality.
• 
  Ashley

  It is a joy to read Cisneros first genre--poetry. Her poems are sparse and honest and draw out truth in vivid imagery. One of my favorites:
  
  Abuelito Who
  Abuelito who throws coins like rain
  and asks who loves him
  who is dough and feathers
  who is a watch and a glass of water
  whose hair is made of fur
  is too sad to come downstairs today
  who tells me in Spanish you are my diamond
  who tells me in English you are my sky
  whose little eyes are string
  can't come out to play
  sleeps in his little room all night and day
  who used to laugh like the letter k
  is sick
  is a doorknob tied to a sour stick
  is tired shut the door
  doesn't live here anymore
  is hiding underneath the bed
  who talks to me inside my head
  is blankets and spoons and big brown shoes
  who snores up and down up and down up and down again
  is the rain on the roof that falls like coins
  asking who loves him
  who loves him who?
• 
  Tori

  loved this a lot, need my own copy asap
• 
  Courtney Ferriter

  ** 3 stars **
  
  I liked the poems "Good Hotdogs" and "Love Poem #1" along with the last section of the volume, entitled "The Rodrigo Poems." Aside from these, the rest of the collection felt like vignettes vaguely structured like poems rather than poems with intentional form and purpose. Kind of a letdown, honestly, although at least the volume ends on a high note.
• 
  Maythee

  I feel like this is the book where you get the closest to catching an honest glimpse into who Cisneros is and what she's about. Her poetry also makes you hunger to be free - emotionally and physically. In particular, her poems about Greece (where she spent a year writing) awaken a deep urge in me and remind me to live for something more than a paycheck.
• 
  Anna F.

  I am crying. Damn.
• 
  Karen

  3.5
• 
  China Rodriguez

  ”Love has come love has gone
  and love has been away
  before but ultimately
  stays.”
• 
  Jana

  Moon in Hydra Women fled. Tired of the myth they had to live. They no longer wait for their Theseus to rescue, then abandon them. Instead, they take the first boat out to Athens. Live alone. No longer Hydra women bound to stone. Smoke rises from the Athens shore, and some say it’s the fumes of autos, motor scooters, factory pollution. But I think it’s an ancient rage. Women who grew tired beneath the weight of years that would not buckle, break nor bend.
• 
  Caitlin Conlon

  I’ve started this review a million times & just don’t have the right words. It transcends my known language.
• 
  mentalexotica

  This is a siren of a book.
• 
  Melissa

  "If peaches had arms / surely they would hold one another / in their peach sleep."
• 
  Ale

  “this is me she is carrying. i am a baby. she does not yet know i will turn out bad.” cisneros will hit every time actually
• 
  Colleen

  Although I keep trying from time to time, I'm not much of a fan of written poetry. I need to hear/see it performed to really appreciate it. That's probably true of the poems in this book as well--I'm sure I'd like them more if I saw Cisneros reading them. But the lack of voice didn't deter from their overall impact, and I thoroughly enjoy reading these poems. Perhaps because her voice is actually quite clear throughout.
• 
  raluca

  Bill, I don’t do laundry
  and I don’t believe in love.
  I believe in bricks.
  And broken windshields.
  And maybe my fist.
  But you’re safe to take
  the road this one time, buddy.
  I’m getting old.
  I’ve learned two things.
  To let go
  clean as kite string.
  And to never wash a man’s clothes.
  These are my rules.
• 
  BM

  Searingly simple, pulls you in immediately.
• 
  Sarah

  Beautifully written and unbelievably sad in some parts, I found it helpful to read these poems out loud. There are some amazing passages though and her writing makes you feel feminine and powerful.
• 
  Amy

  Loved most of the poems in here. Cisneros does some interesting things with internal rhymes and cadence--some of the poems have almost a nursery-rhyme rhythm to them, and it really works.
• 
  Marigold Bookhound

  A good read for the heartbreak.
• 
  Shelley

  I took the crooked route and liked my badness.
  ...
  What does a woman
  willing to invent herself
  at twenty-two or twenty-nine
  do? A woman with no who nor how.
  And how was I to know what was unwise.
  ...I wanted to be happy.
  What's that? At twenty. Or twenty-nine.
  Love. Baby. Husband.
  The works. The big palookas of life.
  Wanting and not wanting.
  
  I've stayed in the front yard all my life,
  I want a peek at the back
  Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
  A girl gets sick of a rose.
  -Gwendolyn Brooks
  
  I play the game straight
  don't go looking for trouble
  ...
  no sir I say just party in peace
  to all people that walk by or ride
  
  ABUELITO WHO
  
  *GOOD HOTDOGS*
  
  Isn't a bad girl almost like a boy?
  -Maxine Hong Kingston
  
  This is me she is carrying.
  I am a baby.
  She does not know
  I will turn out bad.
  
  Something Crazy
  ...I remember days I couldn't wait to work.
  He left me big tips. He had a good smile.
  But what I gave my eye for
  was that moment when he'd turn around
  as he was leaving
  and look at me.
  Oh I was crazy
  for that man for a long time.
  Came in every day for three years.
  Never said a word besides what he was having.
  He'd eat and pay and just as he was leaving,
  turn around.
  I was young then, understand?
  Nobody ever looked at me before.
  ...
  The man with the blue hat
  doesn't come back.
  I wish he did.
  I wish he did.
  Just so I could say, Mister
  that was quite a crush I had.
  ...
  What I felt for him was different,
  something crazy. The kind of thing
  you look for all your life.
  
  ...then it is I want to hymn
  and hallelujah
  sing sweet sweet jubilee
  you my religion
  and I a wicked nun
  
  THE POET REFLECTS ON HER SOLITARY FATE
  
  His Story
  I was born under a crooked star.
  So says my father.
  And this perhaps explains his sorrow.
  An only daughter
  whom no one came for
  and no one chased away.
  ...
  You see.
  An unlucky fate is mine
  to be born woman in a family of men.
  Six sons, my father groans,
  all home,
  and one female,
  gone.
  
  And at time we feel a little like exiles; a woman feels like that when she does not live up to the image of her required by the times, when she does not interpret it, and hence searches for paths, for other "countries" where life for her will be different from that in her own country, in the homeland given her by her mother's womb.
  -Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta, and Maria Velho Da Costa. The Three Marias.
  
  BEAUTIFUL MAN - FRANCE
  
  But to tell the truth
  I think true nature rises
  when the body dances.
  Perhaps that's why I never
  have one partner,
  prefer to dance alone.
  
  Tell me,
  one artist to another,
  what does a woman owe a man,
  and isn't freedom what you believe in?
  Even the freedom to say no?
  At least you did the night before
  ...
  I don't know.
  For all that talk of liberation
  I still felt that seam of anger
  when I danced with you
  and sometimes not with you at all.
  
  ASS (for David)
  
  At the bullfights as a child
  I always cheered for the bull,
  that underdog od underdogs,
  destined to lose...
  ...
  But tonight my heart
  goes out to the survivors,
  to the ones who get away.
  To all underdogs everywhere,
  brabo, Andoni. Ole.
  
  Moon in Hydra
  Women fled.
  Tired of the myth
  they had to live.
  They no longer wait
  for ther Theseus
  to rescue, then
  abandon them.
  Instead,
  they take
  the first boat out
  to Athens.
  Live alone.
  No longer Hydra women
  bound to stone.
  ...
  But I think
  it's an ancient rage.
  Women who grew tired
  beneath the weight of years
  that would not buckle,
  break nor bend.
  
  For a Southern Man
  Bill, I don't do laundry
  and I don't believe in love.
  ...
  I've learned two things.
  To let go
  clean as kite string,
  And to never wash a man's clothes.
  These are my rules.
  
  NO MERCY
  
  And you tell me.
  The words clearer than ether,
  purer than poem.
  A wife, a wife, a wife.
  The woman you love and who loves you.
  All your life.
  
  AME, AMO, AMARE
• 
  Alarie

  I enjoy different kinds of poetry, so a collection like this that combines so many topics and styles poses problems only in how to describe and review it. It was not what I expected, but it was still wonderful. I bought it, as often happens, based on a single poem: “Peaches: Six in a Tin Bowl, Sarajevo.” That poem is so playful, joyful, and fresh, that it strikes me as the love child of e e cummings and Sandra Boynton. It ends,
  
  “And if peaches could
  they would sleep
  with their dimpled head
  on the other’s
  each to each.
  
  Like you and me.
  
  And sleep and sleep.”
  
  I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed this was the only poem much like this, although creating a memory with both an economy of words and judicious, delicious repetition characterizes much of Cisneros’ work. She shares darker poems of childhood as a Latina emigrant, lightened a bit by a child’s naïve viewpoint, sultry love poems, and inviting travel poems.
  
  Here are just a few of my favorite passages.
  
  From “Curtains,”
  
  “Inside they hide bright walls.
  Turquoise or lipstick pink.
  Good colors in another country.
  Here they make you forget
  
  the dinette set that isn’t paid for,
  floorboards the landlord needs to fix…”
  
  
  From “Something Crazy,”
  
The man with the blue hat
  doesn’t come back.
  I wish he did.
  I wish he did….
  
  What I felt for him was different,
  something crazy. The kind of thing
  you look for all your life.”
  
  
  From “Fishing Calamari by Moon,”
  
  “But I am sad. Probably the only
  foolish fisherman to cry
  because we’ve caught a calamari.
  You didn’t tell me how
  
  their skins turn black
  as sorrow. How they suck the air
  in dying, a single terrifying cry
  terrible as sin.”
• 
  merry

  Rating: 3.5
  i wouldn't consider myself a poetry person but i've kinda been craving some lately, and this was a nice collection! my favorites were "Curtains", "My Wicked Wicked Ways", "Mariela", "I the Woman", "Moon in Hydra", "The So-and-So's", and "Drought".
  
  Also I didn't know that the lovely quote "Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep / beside me and never dreamed afraid." was from Sandra Cisneros let alone this specific collection so I was really pleasantly surprised!!
  
  Here's another good one:
  "December 24th, Paris - Notre Dame"
  The Seine runs along.
  Merrily, merrily.
  The river. The rain.
  Water into water.
  
  A blue umbrella fading into fog.
  A child into his mother's arms.
  Buttresses leaping delirious.
  Wind through the vein of trees.
  The rain into the river.
  
  Tomorrow they might find a body here -
  unraveled like a poem,
  dissolved like wafer.
  Say the body was a woman's.
  Ophelia Found.
  Undid the easy know and spiraled.
  Without a sound.
  
  A year ends
  merrily. Merrily
  another one begins.
  I go out into the street once more.
  The wrists so full of living.
  The heart begging once again.